(CNN) - Actress Elizabeth Taylor urged voters in next week’s Democratic primaries to back Hillary Clinton's White House run, saying in a statement released Friday that the New York senator was “not a flibbertijibbet.”

“It would be magnificent for our country if Senator Clinton won the votes, hearts and minds of the people in Indiana and North Carolina on Tuesday. She’s a brilliant teacher and powerful leader. We all know what she’s about. We know what she isn’t. Senator Clinton is not a flibbertijibbet [sic]. She’s strong,” said Taylor.

“It’s also important for great leaders to have a sense of humor about themselves. The future of our great country rests in the hands of the next president. Who sits in the Oval Office will be determined greatly by the citizens of Indiana and North Carolina. In my heart, I know they will choose wisely and they will choose well.”

The actress and activist is a longtime Clinton supporter who has donated the legal maximum of $4,600 to the senator’s campaign.

In January 2007, Taylor also pointed to Clinton’s toughness as the reason she was contributing to her presidential bid. "I have contributed to Sen. Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign because she has a mind of her own and a very strong one at that," Taylor she said in a statement then. "I like the way she thinks. She is very savvy and a smart leader with years of experience in government, diplomacy and politics."

RALEIGH, North Carolina (CNN) – As rumors abound about who they plan do endorse, Hillary Clinton thanked former rival John Edwards and wife Elizabeth for their work on poverty and health care at North Carolina’s Friday night Jefferson-Jackson dinner, just four days before the state’s primary.

“Let me say what a great fighter North Carolina and working Americans everywhere have in John Edwards. John ran with compassion and conviction and his courageous fight to end poverty is a fight I will see to the finish,” said Clinton, adding that she would create a cabinet-level position to focus solely on poverty.

“And I want to thank Elizabeth Edwards for her passion for ending discrimination by the insurance companies and for standing up against John McCain’s inadequate and radical health care plan,” Clinton continued. “Elizabeth Edwards is a true champion for universal health care.”

Elizabeth Edwards said she would be “surprised” if she or her husband – a former North Carolina senator – endorsed a candidate before the primary, but left the door open. Many think Mrs. Edwards leans towards Clinton because she has said that she favors Clinton’s health care plan over Obama’s.

(CNN) – Arianna Huffington, Editor-in-Chief of the Huffingtonpost.com and author of a new book, didn’t pull any punches in assessing the 2008 presidential race.

Sen. Hillary Clinton “has really taken a page out of Karl Rove’s playbook when it comes to her advertising especially,” Huffington told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer Friday.

Huffington compared Clinton’s “3 a.m.” ad to advertising against Sen. John Kerry orchestrated by Rove during President Bush’s 2004 re-election bid. “The assumption was that if people elected Obama they would not be as safe as if they elected her.” “Their children would not be as safe,” added Huffington.

“And then on the eve of the Pennsylvania primary, we had the Osama ad appear,” Huffington said, refererring to a Clinton campaign ad that contained an image of Osama bin Laden, the alleged mastermind of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

“It is a very powerful image in America,” Huffington said of the bin Laden image. “Every election after 9-11 is going to be a national security election and manipulating the electorate’s fear has been key to the re-election of George Bush,” she added.

Huffington, the founder of the popular liberal news and commentary website, also shared her views on Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama, on the way the media is covering the Iraq war, and on “the extreme right of the Republican Party.” “Right is Wrong,” Huffington’s new book, was released recently.

(CNN) - Even though Rep. Ron Paul has never officially ended his long shot presidential bid, he’s ready to weigh in on the three remaining major candidates for the White House.

In an interview on The Situation Room, Paul told Wolf Blitzer that endorsing Sen. John McCain, the Republican Party’s presumptive nominee, “would really confuse” his supporters “because they know we have a precise program and we have to defend that program.”

Having a Republican win the upcoming presidential election is “secondary” for Paul who is more interested in defending the Constitution, having the country go in what he considers the right direction, having a sound currency, and achieving balanced budgets. Paul parts ways with McCain over McCain’s support for the Iraq war, his approach to U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East and his willingness to spend federal dollars to support military operations in Iraq.

CNN=Politics Daily is The Best Political Podcast from the Best Political Team.

(CNN) - With the Democratic primaries in North Carolina and Indiana less than a week away and with deepening concern about the sputtering economy, all three major presidential candidates are targeting voters with economic messages.

In the latest episode of CNN=Politics Daily, Senior Political Analyst Bill Schneider reports on a new CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll on how the American public feels about the way things are going in the country.

Senior Political Correspondent Candy Crowley reports from the campaign trail about the latest battle between Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama over gas prices.

Not to be outdone, Sen. John McCain, the Republican Party's presumptive nominee, is targeting blue-collar, white voters - the so-called "Reagan Democrats" - in crucial states while his Democratic counterparts continue to fight for their party's nod.

Internet Reporter Abbi Tatton also explains what supporters of Rep. Ron Paul are doing to make the Texas legislator's new book a bestseller.

Finally, it's Friday. That's means it's time for Jennifer Mikell's Trail Mix - a look back at the most memorable moments from the campaign trail this week. (Let's hope you have the "fortitude" for the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, a gas station cappuccino machine, and a gender-bending compliment for Sen. Clinton).

New poll results show that voters think the Democratic candidates have a better handle on economic issues.

WASHINGTON (CNN) - The vast majority of Americans think things are going badly in the country, according to a new poll.

Seven in 10 people questioned in a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey released Friday say things are going badly, with only 30 percent saying things are going well.

"It's been 16 years since the public gave the country's condition such a bad rating: January 1992, to be precise, in the last year in office of the last president named Bush," CNN pollster Keating Holland said.

"Seventy percent is a lot worse than two years ago, when 48 percent thought times were bad and the Republicans lost control of Congress," CNN Senior Political Analyst Bill Schneider added.

The poll indicates that presumptive Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain fares poorly against either Democratic candidate when it comes to most domestic and economic issues but has a big advantage on terrorism and a narrow edge on Iraq.

HENDERSONVILLE, North Carolina (CNN) – Hillary Clinton returned to North Carolina on Friday, looking to close the gap with Barack Obama ahead of Tuesday’s primary by trawling for voters in the state’s more rural areas.

“There’s power in them there hills,” said supporter North Carolina Gov. Mike Easley, warming up the crowd at a rally in the hilly western part of the state. “The mountains of North Carolina have about 10 percent of the vote in this state. It’s no accident that Hillary Clinton has been up here as many times as she has.”

Earlier in the day, the New York senator was joined by two of her upstate constituents who praised her support of the agriculture industry at a rally at a John Deere sales center in rural Kinston. Clinton and her surrogates often tout her success in New York’s conservative upstate farming counties as proof that she can not only work with Republicans but that she looks out for small town USA.

DENVER, Colorado (CNN) – A voter at a John McCain campaign event told the presumptive Republican nominee that he needed a “Swift Boats for McCain” group to aid his campaign this fall.

Air Force veteran Clif Sams told McCain that he had done a “damn good job” surviving his imprisonment during the Vietnam War. He then told the senator: “I hope that we have somebody called Swift Boats for McCain come out and help you. You’re damn good.”

“Thank you sir, and thank you for your service,” McCain responded.

In 2004, McCain vigorously defended John Kerry against attacks from “Swift Boat Veterans for Truth,” a group which sought to undermine Kerry’s Vietnam war record. At the time, the Arizona senator called the ads “dishonest and dishonorable.”

Asked why McCain had not had a similar reaction to Friday’s "Swift Boats for McCain" comment, campaign spokesman Steve Schmidt said the senator had repeatedly staked out a “clear position” against third-party groups, and "the only 527 activity is against us."

Sams, the Air Force veteran who now sells life insurance, re-iterated to CNN after the town hall that he would like to see a group similar to “Swift Boat Veterans for Truth” to help McCain defend himself from Democratic attacks in the general election.

He predicted “there will be a lot of veterans like us who come out of the woodwork this fall” to assist McCain.

New polls show Clinton narrowing Obama's lead in North Carolina, once seen as an easy win for Obama.

Polling in Indiana shows the two candidates running dead even.

"We are seeing terrific support all across Indiana and all across North Carolina ... I have no doubt these are going to be tight races. This campaign has been tight throughout," Obama said in Indianapolis, Indiana, Friday morning.

"But I am very confident the American people are looking for the kind of truth telling and serious policy making that is going to have an affect on heir lives, and as long as I'm talking about the issues."

DENVER, Colorado (CNN) – John McCain’s campaign said Friday that Fred Thompson and Sam Brownback will join the presumptive GOP nominee in North Carolina next week for a major speech on judicial appointments.

Both Thompson and Brownback have endorsed the Arizona senator, and both Republicans presented themselves throughout the Republican primary battle as “consistent conservatives,” particularly regarding social issues and judicial appointments.

The speech, to be held Tuesday at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, will be just one element of a broader outreach to conservatives next week, according to the campaign.